Scheherazade or Shahrazad (Persian: شهرزاد Shahrzad) is the (fictional) storyteller of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Persian (فارسی), (local name in Iran and Afghanistan: Fârsi), Pârsi (older local name, but still used by some speakers), Tajik (a Central Asian dialect) or Dari (Another local name in Afghanistan), is a language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Bahrain and Uzbekistan. ... A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. ... The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (كتاب ألف ليلة و ليلة in Arabic or هزار و یک شب in Persian), also known as The book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, 1001 Arabian Nights, or simply the Arabian Nights, is a piece of medieval Arabic literature in...

The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar ("in Persian شهريار Shahryar meaning king) would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday's wife to be beheaded. Scheherazade volunteers to be the king's new wife, trusting in her ability as a storyteller to save her from the fate of her predecessors. A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc) is a narrative technique whereby a main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. ... The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (كتاب ألف ليلة و ليلة in Arabic or هزار و یک شب in Persian), also known as The book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, 1001 Arabian Nights, or simply the Arabian Nights, is a piece of classic Arabic literature in...

Each night Scheherazade would create a new story with the ending in suspense. For 1001 nights this went on and, in the end, Shahryar spared her life (and the world benefited from her 1001 stories). The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hezar-afsana (the Thousand Myths) (in Persian هزارافسانه).

See also

• Arab mythology